journal, 08/31/97
Princess Diana died last night. I think I want to write something about it. I suppose that sounds rude, mentioning that I want to write something about the incident, instad of saying that I feel terrible or something. I mean, it’s sad that she died, but I didn’t know her. I do find it fascinating that she died while being chased by photographers on motorbikes and that the media is still in a frenzy, broadcasting hour afer hour about her life ending in tragedy. I think it’s also interesting that she became a princess at what, nineteen?, and she though she was really becoming a princess, as did the rest of the world, but really she was just a tool for the royal family, including and especially her husband. And she had to learn fast how to deal with the paparazzi, and the affairs, and everyone wanting to know every detail of her life, and he husband never admitting he loved her. And she was bulemic, and she suffered post-natal depression, and then she went on to do charity work, and then she was divorced. And then she tried to start her life over again and the tabliods snuck around for every photo of her with men that they could get and made her out to be some sort of whore, and just as she’s probably starting to feel better about the past seventeen years of her life, just as she’s starting to move one, she dies in a car accident.
It really is strange, if you think about it.
***
I’m visiting my friend Brian right now, he lives at Indiana University, I’m trying to set up some poetry shows here, but since it’s the weekend, every events manager is out of town. Well, his roommate Sarah is telling me about the obnoxious neighbors, and how they’ve been lighting fireworks late at night that are loud, and then she said one of her neighbors lit a cat on fire. And I thought, well, they probably just lit the tail and it went out a second or two after they did it. I’m then listening to the news later on tonight with brian, and one of the stories shows a picture of a cat with almost no hair, burned all over, with a cone on its head.
